


Ready and Waiting

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2017 [7]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:22:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any Slash Pairing, Bangles."Jack falls for Daniel sometime in the first year of the Stargate Program, but Daniel isn't ready, so Jack waits.





	

Jack watched Daniel in the weeks that followed the birth of the Stargate Program. Instead of a one-time mission, going through the Stargate had become a regular thing. There were planets to explore and cultures to study and new technology to observe and trade for, treaties to make. Daniel put on a good show of being intrigued by new cultures, new languages, living history, seeing new worlds, but Jack could see the undercurrent of tension in his gaze. He had one mission and one mission only: to find and rescue his wife.  
  
His wife. Pretty Sha’re, with her big dark eyes and soft dark curls and sweet face, her trusting smile and her sharp, sharp mind. A rebel, the only literate person in a society where literacy had been stamped out by goa’uld oppression. She’d led her people in a revolution.  
  
Daniel had lived on Abydos for three years, loved her, and lost her.  
  
It had taken the Air Force a while to arrange lodgings for Daniel, and he’d stayed at Jack’s house for a couple of weeks before he finally had an apartment of his own. Jack had given Daniel the spare bedroom and taken him clothes shopping as soon as he could manage, but more often than not, Daniel would wander around the house in his Abydonian robes. He probably thought Jack didn’t know, but he slept on the floor of the bedroom on a pile of pillows and had actually built a blanket fort.  
  
No, a tent.  
  
Because for Daniel, Abydos was home. Sha’re and Skaara were his family. And he’d lost them both.  
  
Jack was relieved when Daniel got a place of his own, so he could stop pretending he didn’t hear Daniel crying out in his sleep, that he wasn’t aware of Daniel’s strange quirks, but he was also worried. Worried that Daniel was going through the gate and writing mission reports and doing translations all day and then going home at night and pacing himself into worried exhaustion, fretting over Sha’re and her brother. Or that Daniel was just - collapsing, like a de-powered robot.  
  
So he made a point to swing by and check on Daniel once in a while. More often than not, Daniel’s door was propped open so some cat that roamed his apartment building could come and go as it pleased, and Jack found him asleep on the couch, glasses slipping down his nose, books scattered around him, or Jack found him asleep on the balcony, wrapped in an Abydonian blanket, face tilted toward the stars.  
  
A couple of times Jack called ahead, made sure Daniel was awake, came by with pizza and beer and a hockey game on tape, or a movie he thought Daniel might like, though Daniel probably had more in common with Carter and would rather hang out with her.  
  
After the crazy mission to Oannes, and being convinced Daniel was dead, Jack was pretty shaken up, and pretty much on every night off, he swung by to just say hi to Daniel, reassure himself that Daniel was still alive. Daniel accepted the fussing with patience, and was it Jack’s imagination, or did Daniel seem...amused by the frequent visits?  
  
Amusement was good. Amusement was better than brooding over Sha’re and Skaara and Apophis.  
  
And then Hathor happened. Jack remembered standing in the doorway of the locker room that had been Hathor’s spawning point. He didn’t really remember being made her First Prime, being made a Jaffa, having a symbiote forced into his body, but just knowing it had happened was too much. He did remember the grim look on Daniel’s face when he admitted to Janet that they’d find some of his DNA in the larval goa’uld they recovered.  
  
What happened with Hathor required more than beer and pizza, so Jack broke into his stash of whiskey, the stuff he only drank on special occasions (Charlie’s birthday, father’s day), and he headed over to Daniel’s apartment.  
  
Sure enough, the door was ajar, so Jack nudged it open with his foot. “Daniel? It’s Jack. We really need to talk about you locking your door. You’re living in a big, bustling metropolis now.”

Only there was no answer. Instead Jack could hear faint music. He followed the sound, cautious. He recognized drums and reedy instruments, the kind he associated with Middle Eastern music. The rhythm was foreign, too. Jack crossed the den, cautious, because one time he had stumbled upon Daniel as Daniel was coming out of his shower, but the shower wasn’t running, and the bedroom was empty. Jack followed the sound all the way across the apartment to the balcony. One of the sliding doors was open, so Jack peered out, but it was empty.  
  
The music was louder, so Jack peered over the railing and saw -   
  
Daniel. Dancing. He was barefoot and shirtless, wearing loose, low-slung pants. A battered radio was on the ground next to his feet, and he was winding his torso, twining his hands in the air, and he looked -   
  
Calm. Serene.  
  
Beautiful.  
  
He tipped his head back, spinning, and spinning, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He was wearing a scarf tied around his hips, and when he flourished his hands, Jack heard bells.  
  
Bangles. Daniel was wearing dozens and dozens of metal bangles that jingled and rang like bells as he danced. Jack stared, entranced, at the way the bangles caught the light, created a counterpoint rhythm to the wailing music.  
  
In Jack’s memory, for the three years Daniel had been on Abydos, Daniel had been clumsy. Frail. Stumbling. Awkward.  
  
This Daniel was graceful, the slide of muscles beneath skin sinuous, the sway and twist of his limbs smooth, controlled.  
  
And Jack - Jack _wanted_.  
  
It wasn’t his place to want. Daniel was grieving his wife. And after what Daniel had been through with Hathor, the last thing he needed was Jack imagining pinning Daniel against the wall, pressing kisses to the insides of those delicate wrists, stroking hands over those lean, sleek muscles.  
  
Jack turned around and walked away.  
  
In the days that followed, though, he noticed. The grace of Daniel’s hands, his long fingers. The line of his neck when he tilted his head just so. The rare moments when Daniel’s uniform was flattering on him.  
  
He refused to let himself linger on those moments, pushed them aside, and very carefully did not recall them when he was alone at night, or in the shower, or brooding and feeling lonely.  
  
And then Jack and Carter nearly froze to death in Antarctica, and when they were recovered, Jack had had enough. Enough waiting, enough longing. Daniel was the one who hung around the infirmary longest, after Hammond and Teal’c departed. Carter was asleep on the other side of the privacy curtain between their beds.  
  
Daniel said, “I’ve noticed you watching me.”  
  
Jack met his gaze, held it. “Have you.”  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“I stopped by your place a while back, but you weren’t home. You were down on the first floor, in the communal garden. You were - wearing bangles.”  
  
“Sha’re taught me to dance.”

“She taught you well.”  
  
Daniel stared down at his hands. “You almost died. But we almost die on a weekly basis, it seems.”  
  
Jack reached out, circled one of Daniel’s slender wrists with his fingers. “That’s true.”  
  
Daniel pulled free from Jack’s grasp. “I’m not - I haven’t given up on her. I’m not ready for -”  
  
“When you are, I’ll be here.” And Jack waited.

Years later, trapped on an alien planet, memories suppressed under a mind stamp, Jonah and Carlin slept curled together, protecting each other from the cold and the rest of the world.  
  
After they got their memories back, they went their separate ways, home to clean off the dirt and grime of the underground factory, to put themselves back together, because they could remember who they’d been on that planet, the things they’d done, the things they ordinarily never would have done (or would they have done?).  
  
When Jack stepped out of the shower, he paused at the mirror, stared at himself, reminded himself that he was Jack, not Jonah.  
  
The doorbell rang. He pulled on a t-shirt as he crossed the house, was just smoothing it down with one hand as he pulled the door open.  
  
Daniel was standing there. He looked - nervous. A little miserable and cold. He was wearing his old Abydonian robes.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Hey, yourself,” Jack said slowly.  
  
“Can I come in?”  
  
“Mi casa es su casa.” Jack stepped back and gestured widely, and Daniel slipped into the house. He was carrying his little Abydonian leather satchel, too. “What have you got there?”  
  
Daniel fished inside, handed Jack an unlabeled cassette.   
  
“Okay.” Jack blinked at it for a moment, then turned and went hunting for his radio with the built-in cassette player. When he’d found it, he put it up on the mantle, plugged it in. “Does it matter which side?” He turned back to Daniel.  
  
Daniel had dug around in his bag some more and was holding a pile of bangles. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t matter which side.” He shrugged off his robes and his shirt, laid them over the arm of the couch, took off his glasses and set them on the coffee table. Then, very carefully, he began to slide the bangles on, one at a time, first his right arm, then his left.  
  
“Hit it, Jack.”  
  
Jack popped the tape in and pressed play, never looking away from Daniel. Drums filled the room, and Daniel began to move, and his bangles began to ring and jingle, and Jack held very, very still as he watched.  
  
Halfway through the song, Daniel said, “This is about the part where you’re supposed to stand up and join me.”  
  
“Join you? I don’t dance. I look -”  
  
“Then,” Daniel said, “don’t dance with me. Just kiss me.”  
  
Jack didn’t have to be told twice. He crossed the room and swept Daniel into his arms.   
  
The kiss was messy and desperate. Daniel was breathless from dancing, but his skin was warm and he was beautiful and Jack was lost.  
  
When they pulled back for air, Jack asked, “Are you sure?”  
  
Daniel nodded. “I’m ready.” He leaned in and kissed Jack again, and together they stumbled for the bedroom, shedding their clothes as they went, and when Daniel was finally astride Jack, riding him, thighs flexing, all Jack could hear was his pleasured cries and his bangles ringing.


End file.
